It was Wednesday night the 1st day of November 2023 and the team that boasts the name of the state: The Texas Rangers finally notched a World Series hole in their belts. The last pitch a third strike to the heart of the plate to watch Ketel Marte just watch and buckle him delivered by Josh Sborz. Now that the Texas Rangers have won the first ever World Series in franchise history: What's Next?
First and foremost, take the offseason to get healthy after a long season. Many of the opening day roster were not in the lineup that was in the postseason lineup. Some of this was due to the fact that in a season that consists of 162 regular season games and then up to 20 postseason games that will definitely make you hurt. Many "premier" players will just play through the pain. We saw it with Corey Seager(winner of the World Series MVP for the second time in 3 years) as he hit a homerun in game four and rounded the bases you could clearly see he was in pain. However, he is a premier player that wants to be on the field no matter what and guess what? He was in the game 5 clincher and looked ultimately happy that the games are over until Spring Training.
Second, add pitching help. Now many of you will and can if you want balk at that. However, for most of the season, the bullpen for the Texas Rangers was amongst the worse in baseball. The team could and will need to add some bullpen arms as they are likely to lose: Chapman, Smith, and Perez. All of those to many fans would not be huge losses. Perez would be the most notable to be lost, however, after losing his starting job to Montgomery and Scherzer. Scherzer should be back next year but will be up there in age for a major league starting pitcher. In all reality, they need to add one starter and 2 relievers whether that be through free agency, trades, or the top 10 farm system of the major leagues. So if I am adding these are my targets: Nola, Hader, and trade for Cease.
Projected early starting rotation for 2024:
Scherzer
Nola
Cease
Eovaldi
Gray
By doing this, if Heaney opts in then you have Heaney and Dunning and possibly Bradford as your long relievers and potential fill in or spot starts until you get DeGrom back by potentially September 2024. Pitching will again be a top priority of Texas this offseason as GM Chris Young says: " You can't ever have TOO much pitching".
Lastly, either sign a DH that if Garver resigns with the Rangers can play in the outfield. Realistically, a JD Martinez is a target if I am the Texas Rangers. As we saw the last two games of the World Series when Garcia went down it would've been nice to have a power bat in his absence. If you don't target Martinez then the next best thing is to call up Wyatt Langford the 1st overall pick from this years draft. He's been tearing up the baseball and really could add to the already young core of the Texas Rangers. So realistically what would a lineup with one of these two in the lineup:
Semien
Seager
Carter
Garcia
Garver/Langford/Martinez
Jung
Heim
Lowe
Taveras
The Rangers had the best offensive numbers in baseball all season long. So why stop with that? Why not try to go one better and have it two years in a row? The Texas Rangers went and took it one year let's continue to be the heart and soul of the state of Texas.
In conclusion, as you can see there are some things that need to be done in the offseason. However, after a season in which the taste of 2011 was rinsed out of the mouths of Rangers fans young and old they could really not do much and still make their way back to THE SHOW. One year and we are back let's continue this ride!